This invention relates to animal husbandry, and more particularly to a divider gate for a stall in a milking barn.
In a large cow milking operation, is important to produce an orderly but rapid flow of animals into and out of their stalls. It is highly desirable to prevent more than one animal from entering a given stall, and to ensure that all stalls are occupied. Prior inventors have addressed the problem with various arrangements of automatically controlled gates and/or shuttle platforms to direct animals into their stalls, and to release them from the same. Examples of such arrangements are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,810,442, No. 4,362,127, No. 4,452,175, No. 4,508,059, and No. 4,715,321. Control gates for feeding stalls have also been proposed. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,687, access to feed is controlled by a series of gates which are pivoted by animal contact from a normally closed position blocking the manger to an open position that laterally confines the animal.
In a parallel dairy parlor, the length of each stall is perpendicular to an aisle along which the cows file to the stalls. To fill the stalls in an orderly but rapid manner, it is best to fill the stall sequentially, beginning with the stall at the far end of the aisle. This goal may be achieved by providing each stall with an entry gate which is normally closed and remains so except when opened by contact with the body of an animal entering an adjacent stall. In a dairy parlor, however, the gate width must be substantially greater than the width of the stall mouth, and this requirement cannot be attained by the gates disclosed in the prior art, whose width only equals the stall width. Substantially greater width is required to completely block the stall, when the gate is closed, and the aisle, when the gate is open.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a stall entry control gate, specifically for a parallel dairy parlor, which completely and firmly blocks access to a stall when closed, yet which is pivoted open readily upon contact by the preceding cow.
Another object is to ensure that stalls are filled in succession, and that none are left unoccupied.
A further object of the invention is to provide a stall entry gate whose effective width is substantially greater than the width of the stall mouth.
The above objects are met, without remote control, supervision, or complex mechanical operators, by a parallel dairy stall arrangement comprising a series of stalls separated by dividers, each stall having an entry gate and an exit gate, each entry gate being mounted on a respective one of the dividers on hinges forming a hinge axis, each entry gate being movable about the axis, between closed and open positions. A substantial portion of the entry gate lies on either lateral side of the hinge axis, so that a major portion of the gate extends across the mouth of the stall, normally preventing an animal from entering the stall, and a minor portion of the gate extends partially across the mouth of a neighboring stall. The gate comprises a panel defined by top and bottom edges and first and second lateral edges, and the lateral edges vertically overlap those of adjacent gates, so as to have an effective width greater than the width of the stall.
In the preferred configuration, each gate panel has the shape of a parallelogram.